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Posts Tagged ‘funk’

Steve Wilson’s Soulful Song Still Sings at Jazz Standard

Posted in Album Reviews, Jazz Standard, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Steve Wilson underwent a grand metamorphosis.
Photo courtesy of jazzstandard.net.

How much has changed since Steve Wilson released Soulful Song nine years ago? If his residency with guest Carla Cook at the Jazz Standard was any indication, his fondness for vocal accompaniment is alive and well – but as a player and composer, Wilson grooves with a humbler impetus than the funk of years past. Dubbed the Steve Wilson Super Band, the saxist’s latest configuration is super by all means, featuring contrabassist James Genus of Saturday Night Live fame, Grammy-winning drummer Billy Kilson, and pianist Patrice Rushen, the Grammy Awards’ first female musical director.

Nearly a decade has passed since this record, but Wilson still has that soul.

Wilson’s marathon soprano sax solo on Monk’s “Bright Mississippi” offered his star-studded band the perfect grounds upon which to extrapolate. While Wilson paused to take a breath, Genus took flight, releasing from his cavernous instrument a thick and muscular rhythm. Rushen steered toward a thoughtful vibe, streaming through the melody as cleanly as water. Kilson’s aural fireworks set a powerful counterpoint to her clement style, morphing from a few tentative cymbal taps to a boisterous affair of clangs and thwacks.

The athletic drummer wasn’t all pyrotechnics, providing a light swishing momentum on Wilson’s “Be One”. Wilson eased into the growlingly candlelit ambience too, picking up a fuller-bodied alto sax while Genus coaxed the gentler side of his contrabass. Rushen emerged as queen of the flourishes, punctuating the mood with expressive morsels of piano. And though Carla Cook was scheduled to appear on two nights of the band’s four-day stay, Wilson paid the vocalist homage in her absence, melting in and out of brassy sashays in his own good time.

Kilson channels the power of one-thousand thunderstorms into a humble drum set.
Photo courtesy of Tony Swartz.

The band paid real homage to the days of yonder on Miles Davis’ “Directions”, rekindling their old spark in a slew of sax bursts, keyboard synths, and blasts of contrabass. And it was in this piece that Kilson launched into the most controversial solo of the night. Equal parts bombastic, chaotic, and soul-driven, his unaccompanied affair diverged the audience into two streams: the chair-shaking clappers, and their silent, borderline-offended counterparts. Perhaps understandably so – his explosive intensity is not made to lull the ears at first listen. But the truth remains that on this jam, Kilson was the flame behind the band’s fire, flaring, crashing, and burning with unapologetic fervor.

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A Jazz Standard Check-Up, Courtesy of Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio

Posted in Jazz Standard, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Dr. Lonnie Smith at the Jazz Standard, circa 2010.
Photo Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

On one of the most bone-chilling winter nights of the year, Dr. Lonnie Smith’s organ spirit reached exhilarating heights in trio with guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Jamaire Williams. Though this arrangement lies on the intimate end of Smith’s quintet and nonet spectrum, the band enveloped the Jazz Standard as would a full-sized orchestra. Stirred about by a gently permeating stream of chords off Kreisberg’s guitar, the set began its ascent toward whole-body catharsis with the tune “River Walk”.

The evening eased in with a reflective vibe in the hands of Smith’s bass-like organ hum and Williams’ tenderly rhythmic drums. The mellow piece, featured on Smith’s 1991 release The Turbanator, took an explosive turn a few minutes in, clearing the aural sinuses with an acidic yet soulful flavor. Heads began bobbing across the audience at first listen of Smith’s signature trail-blazing tang. The organist riffed, cascaded, and pounded on his Hammond B3 with blissful abandon, spearheading into assertive zest alongside Kreisberg’s jolting crescendos and Williams’ creative dynamism.

The trio grasped their flaming momentum by the reigns in a rock-jazz fusion jam taken from Spiral, their latest release. A drum-organ storm bubbled and broke the anthem into heavily rhythmic discord, zapped by blurts of guitar. The edgy turmoil abruptly whittled down to light acoustic for a few moments, steeping deeply in Kreisberg’s earthy chord bits and streaming riffs. And just as abruptly, his riffs morphed to fiery grenades, providing a virtuosic battlefield upon which Smith’s piercing, violin-like organ tousled into Williams’ intensely rocking beats. The resulting sound embodied explosive convolution to anarchic appeal, dancing upon the verge of spilling over.

The organ master has arrived!
Photo credits: ipress.hr

Though the trio undoubtedly masters bold fanfare, its way with heart-touching composition is most gripping of all. “Pilgrimage”, a tune featured on Smith’s 2009 album Rise Up, carried the set to a bittersweet close, at the crossroads of serene romanticism and fierce melancholy. Kreisberg filled the shoes of alto saxist Donald Harrison (who appeared on the original recording), and soon twisted those shoes into a musical sculpture of his own. His tender tone set forth a gently captivating melody laced with enveloping aural warmth. Smith’s sparse vocals were the true clincher, however, mingling with his raspy organ as though the very same instrument.

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A Symphony to Remember at BAM

Posted in BAM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Roumain, encircled by an array of dancers.
Photo credits: ideastream.org

Symphony for the Dance Floor is multimedia fusion at its most literal and dramatic: a rich mash-up of pop, R&B, classical, and hip-hop music with modern dance, ballet, and gymnastics. At its core is Daniel Bernard Roumain, an innovative aural sculptor who far surpasses the scope of his composer-violinist title.

Inspired by the earthquake in Haiti, Roumain’s piece – commissioned for BAM’S New Wave Festival – takes a brazen approach to the Caribbean disaster: that of celebration, exclamation, and outspoken energy. Roumain, Haitian by heritage, mentions his father’s frequent “celebrations of life” as a driving force behind Symphony for the Dance Floor. Even in the days following the earthquake, Haitian natives still kept their vivaciousness, “dancing and singing in the streets” of Port-au-Prince. Roumain translated this resilience of spirit into a vibrant, deeply complex musical and visual performance.

Roumain made his first appearance as an enlarged shadow behind a projection screen, introduced by DJ/emcee Lord Jamar. The fog and mirror act never completely died down, even after he made his way onto the actual stage. A smoke screen and flaring lights enveloped the stage as he bowed and plucked his violin with fervor, wildly interacting with Jamar’s hip-hop beats. “Inseparable” saw the full theatrical scope of Roumain’s violin technique. He switched from lightning fast, high pitched bow notes to resonant hand plucks, occasionally rapping on the violin’s wooden exterior. At his boldest, he held the bow between his teeth during plucks.

Despite the dramatic façade, Roumain is first and foremost a musician, and a powerful one at that. He plays violin with the soul-driven vigor of improvised hip-hop, and the genteel tact of a pondering classical violinist, letting the breadth of his instrument shine through quality of sound rather than quantity. Against Jamar’s club-thumping drum and guitar loops, Roumain kept his part simple but powerful. Whenever fitting, he interjected with downturned accents and high-pitched whines.

Millicent Johnnie intertwines with Roumain.
Photo credits: africlassical.blogspot.com

Choreographer Millicent Johnnie and her dance group brought forward the “dance floor” dimension of the fierce symphony. The company of stylistically versatile dancers underscored Roumain and Jamar’s dynamic aural texture with dynamism of a different sort. At times rhythmic and beat-driven, other times echoing classical ballet, they infused the stage with an intriguing visual contrast. Roumain intertwined with the dancers while playing violin, both mingling with and adapting their physical energy into passionate musical propulsion. The music-dance union shone most strikingly in Roumain’s closing composition with Millicent Johnnie, entitled “The Loss”. Initially a teasing mingling between the two artists, the piece slowly unfolded into a gymnastic and musical feat charged with graceful sensuality. Johnnie first balanced herself along the full length of Roumain’s forward-arched back. She gripped the violinist’s legs and wove around his limbs with slow precision. Their culminating “body sculpture” elicited a bit of laughter from the audience: Roumain lay on his stomach and – with Johnnie stepping along his back – slid his bow with absolutely no loss of virtuosity.

A motif punctuated Symphony for the Dance Floor, first in film form, then adapted to on-stage performance. Roumain briefly left the stage, letting a pre-recorded black-and-white film projection take his place. The film was an odd ode to the violin, perhaps a cross between hyper-symbolic indie cinema and a slow, intense music video. Johnnie handled a single violin as a miniature dance partner, moving in deliberate tandem with the stringed instrument. Shots of Roumain’s fierce bow technique punctuated her evolving dance. Johnnie’s company realized the recorded piece with violin replicas later in the symphony, accompanied by the violinist in the flesh. The reprise did feature a grippingly bizarre form of instrumentation: a multi-pitch, multi-tonal array of guttural sighs, grunts, and intonations.

Amid the conglomerate of spicy violin, hip-hop, and dance, the evening’s best moments were some of its quaintest. Tucked away at a piano in a corner of the stage, Cynthia Hopkins’ sparse chords and quirky folk vocals simmered the vivacious evening into serene introspection. Roumain matched her pitch and tone to near perfection, mingling in harmonic intervals with her witty lyrical musings. A single dancer slinked across the stage with a tad too much provocativeness, though Hopkins overcame the damper with a delicate and understated charm.

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At the Jazz Standard, the Doctor is In

Posted in Jazz Standard, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Dr. Lonnie Smith, in all of his glory.
Photo credits: hammond-organ.com

The nearly four decade career of pioneering organist Dr. Lonnie Smith has branched to the tune of a newly formed nonet, featuring a mix of both well established and quickly rising jazz talents. The “little big band” barely made it onto the Jazz Standard’s sizeable stage, prompting several brass and percussion members to park themselves at a nose’s length of front-seated folks—perhaps a slight foreshadowing to the band’s explosive sound to come. Dr. Lonnie’s collaborators took a backseat during the concert’s first few minutes, giving him the clear to go to town on his Hammond B-3 organ. Maintaining his signature sage-like presence, he blared chunky chord after the other on a sixties-era composition, quickly rising to electric astringency.

Live at the Jazz Standard!
Photo credits: zooomr.com

The nonet missed the “organ band” title by a long shot despite Dr. Lonnie’s initial command, fully blossoming over to a conglomerated sound early in the set. Dr. Lonnie ebbed and flowed his funky twangs with harmonious tact, intertwining with a succession of solos ranging from classic and aged to uncannily experimental. Trumpeter Keyon Harrold pioneered both worlds in an extended brass tangent, vigorously propelled by circular breathing, reaching extents of piercing acerbity and lush warmth. Logan Richardson on tenor sax countered with a more measured approach leaning on the side of buttery, brewing smoothness.

Song choice progressed in an increasingly charged direction, delving from the playfully romantic, acid jazz feel of “Too Damn Hot” into darker material. An instrumentally complex political tune bore much of the concert’s dark weight. John Ellis traded his tenor sax for bass clarinet in an ominous solo, further made eerie by Jamire Williams’ military march drum reps. Dr. Lonnie didn’t completely abandon his vivacious tang, closing the tune with a gentler funk guided along by guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg’s steamy, thread-thin strums.

A Middle Eastern-tinged number returned the band slightly back to its original looseness. Tubist Max Seigel blurted out some low notes to settle in the back ear, excellently accenting the band’s rich brass-percussion unison. Echoing both homey soul and mystic spirituality, the piece was an appropriately simmering clincher to a set driven by dynamic sound.

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